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Edward Paisnel - The Beast of Jersey

Grim hunt ... courtyard in centre of building is focus of the police search

Jersey facing tough question ... who knew what?

By MARTIN PHILIPS
Senior Feature Writer
in Jersey

AS the search continued for human remains, the background noise was of skeletons rattling in Jersey closets.
The island’s people were searching their collective conscience as questions began over whether there had been a cover-up of decades of child abuse and, if so, how many people were involved.
The same dogs used in the hunt for Madeleine McCann have been brought in to identify possible burial sites, but it doesn’t take a sniffer dog to know something stinks at the heart of this island.
A police probe into child abuse going back several generations was made public last year.
Lenny Harper, the island’s deputy police chief, said: “Police officers became concerned at the number of people in positions of authority being connected with paedophile crimes.”
If there was a big conspiracy on an island with just 88,000 people, most may know, or know of, someone involved.
The discovery of the remains echoes of 1973 cult horror film The Wicker Man, in which a Scottish cop investigates the disappearance of a young girl on a Hebridean island whose population follows a bizarre pagan cult.

MURDER cops were last night breaking into a DUNGEON where bodies are feared to be buried in the former care home at the centre of an alleged child abuse conspiracy.

Beast ... evil Edward

A dog trained to sniff out human remains has identified hotspots above the bricked-up cellar — in which terrified youngsters would be thrown into solitary confinement.
And it emerged that a sex fiend dubbed the Beast of Jersey visited the children’s home dressed as Father Christmas.
It follows the discovery of a child’s skull at the Haut de la Garenne mansion on the holiday isle. A criminal investigation was also underway into claims of a cover-up of the scandal by police and government officials.

Around 40 suspects, mainly ex-care workers, are to be grilled amid reports of appalling sexual and physical abuse going back decades.
A former inmate said FLOGGINGS for misbehaviour were so brutal that a boy’s finger was cut off by a cane. And a top cop said the current investigation has been dogged by OBSTRUCTION from locals.
Drilling machinery is being used to uncover the grim secrets of the Victorian building — once used to film police station scenes in the Jersey cop TV series Bergerac.

Graves

Forensic teams are also focusing on a number of suspected graves under an interior courtyard, where children were drilled and forced to march for hours on end. Around 150 ex-inmates have now come forward claiming they were attacked at Haut de la Garenne, mainly in the 1970s and 1980s.

Evil ... rape outfit worn by Edward

Crucially, three former victims, two men and a woman, told police that bodies were buried there.
Notorious paedophile Edward Paisnel — the Beast of Jersey — was a frequent visitor to the home in the 1960s. He was known as “Uncle Ted”, handing out sweets and toys to groom kids, and dressing up as Santa.
The builder was jailed for 30 years in 1971 for 13 sex attacks spanning 11 years.
He terrorised the island, climbing into bedrooms to assault children. Paisnel, who died in 1994, was obsessed with black magic and wore a rubber mask and nail-studded bracelets during his attacks.
It is alleged that during the brutal regime at Haut de la Garenne, children as young as six faced beatings and confinement in the “dungeon”.
Ex-resident Frank Lewis was so appalled by his experiences that before dying in 1979 he wrote a harrowing account. In it he recalled boys being forced to wash 25 at a time in a huge stone bath. He said: “Any boy who failed to remove every trace of dirt was ordered, naked and trembling, from the water to be flogged or kicked.

“On his first day a new headmaster came in with a cane and a Bible — and told us that he didn’t rule with the former but with the latter.
“Within a week he’d flogged me until I bled in front of the whole school and cut off a boy’s finger with a sharp cane.”
Islander Kenny Le Quesne described brutal beatings during the 1960s. He said: “My mother sent me there after she caught me stealing money from her purse. Within hours of arriving, I ran away. When I returned, the principal beat me with a birch.”
Stanley Ballard, 74, was at Haut de la Garenne for ten years after his mother died when he was six. He recalled: “If we were naughty we would be put into solitary confinement.

Bully boys ruled the home. But I’m very lucky I wasn’t there in the 1960s — I heard some horror stories. There are some gruesome tales. I’m surprised they haven’t surfaced earlier.”
The detective leading the murder hunt, Deputy Chief Officer Lenny Harper, said officers had drawn up a list of possible missing children who may be among victims at the home — dubbed Colditz by kids.
Mr Harper went on: “Efforts are being concentrated on the cellar, which has been bricked up. We’re having problems getting in. There seems to be some sort of backfill. A dog indicated a number of areas.”
It could be a fortnight before excavations are complete. The inquiry was triggered two years ago when cops linked a string of paedophile inquiries to the home.
The skull of a child, believed to be a teenager and to date from the 1980s, was unearthed beneath a corridor at the weekend. Among the remains was a girl’s hair clasp, a button and a piece of fabric.
In 2003 builders found bones next to children’s shoes at the home but police said they were an animal’s. There have been no arrests so far. But Deputy Chief Harper, a former RUC and Scotland Yard officer, added: “We have had some resistance and some obstruction.
“Not from official departments but from people who perhaps were working at the home. A lot of the victims tried to report their assaults. For some reason they were never dealt with in the way they should.”
The home opened in 1867 and closed in 1986. It is now a YHA youth hostel. Jersey’s Chief Minister Frank Walker said: “Protection of children is our highest priority

This is an awful story!
Did you notice the last line?
“Protection of children is our highest priority”
If only that had always been true

If only that were true today. I guess back in the 70s and 80s people didn't think this sort of thing could happen. There is one good thing about the Information Age and is that when something like child abuse takes place, it forces those in charge of all institutions to look at their own staff to see that this isn't happening. How incredibly sick!! I hope they tear that place down. Is this in the UK? When I read "Jersey" I thought it was in New Jersey...I'm a blonde sometimes.

Jersey – the most southerly Island of the British Isles. Located some 100 miles (160 kms) south of mainland Britain yet only 14 miles (22 kms) from the coast of France, Jersey provides the visitor with a kaleidoscope of sensory stimuli.

Amanda WalkerSky News reporter Updated:06:08, Wednesday February 27, 2008 <H2>In an exclusive account of life within the walls of the Haut de la Garenne, 48-year-old Pamela tells Sky News of her ongoing torment and desire for justice:

</H2> Pamela wants justice

Pamela is dying. Her doctor has said she has five years left before the respiratory disease Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease takes her life.
Her whole life has been one of unimaginable horror. After being beaten by her mother, at the age of 12 she was sent to the Haute de la Garenne in the early 1970s, which she described as a "paedophile's paradise".
"It was like Colditz. They say the name means rabbit warren but it was more like a coven of caves. Scary for a child - scary for any person."
By her own admission, Pamela was a spirited and stubborn child. On her first night in the institution she says the atmosphere and treatment induced a panic attack.
"When I kicked off I was taken to the punishment room - it was tiny. Two male members of staff stripped me naked. They gave me valium every four hours. I asked them if they had been touching me - I had no idea because I was out of my head.
"The only air vent was though to the garage - fumes were constantly coming through. I was lucky to have my pot changed once a week. One day I realised I'd been in there for six months."
She says rape and abuse was rife.

Staff would offer her "a packet of cigarettes for a blow job". She says the other children in the home were like zombies: "Their eyes were dead. So many of them became heroine addicts. Nobody had the willpower to stand up and say what was happening."
Pamela did have the courage to stand up. She reported what was happening to the head of the Haute de la Garenne but her cry for help was ignored.
"I felt betrayed by the whole system," she said.
There have been allegations of establishment cover ups; claims that child deaths were explained as runaways.
I asked Pamela what the children were told when one of them went missing: "I would ask - where's Caroline - for example. She's gone away to a foster home. Eventually I believed what they told me."
Pamela went on to have two children of her own.
"I can say 'I love you' on the phone but I can't show them love. When I was showering them I would cover them with the shower curtain. I shut my eyes when I was drying them because what had happened in there made me feel disgusted to see my own children naked."
Her whole life has been utterly devoid of love. If she could live her life again she says that is what she would change.
"Love is easy and there's so much of it inside me. To have just 10 minutes of affection?"
I asked Pamela what she wants to see happen now.
"I want justice. I want the dead to rise up and say thank you for achieving that.
"If justice isn't achieved I will take my own life. Not because I'm mad but because I can't bear to see those people walking down the street."

Jersey – the most southerly Island of the British Isles. Located some 100 miles (160 kms) south of mainland Britain yet only 14 miles (22 kms) from the coast of France, Jersey provides the visitor with a kaleidoscope of sensory stimuli.